We hate to draw any of the well-deserved spotlight from the 67 new Bicycle Friendly Businesses we announced today, but we just had to take a moment to commend the efforts of the University of South Carolina.

As a kid in California, I rode my bike to pass endless hours outside with my friends, getting wind in my hair and mud on my tires. As a college student at the University of Missouri, I rode to get to class and work — and the bluff-top winery off the Katy Trail.

We all know that riding a bike is good for the environment, our health, and our pocketbooks, but here's one more way it pays to bike – The Bicycle Commuter Tax Benefit. With folks filing their returns for Uncle Sam, there's no day like Tax Day to encourage employers to offer this transportation benefit to employees.

For more than a decade, millions of students have participated in Walk to School Day each October. Now, in partnership with the League, the National Center for Safe Routes to School has taken the successful concept to two wheels, launching National Bike to School Day.

For many of us who travel by bike, our daily commutes have happily become more crowded. When I leave the office in the evening, the cycletrack up 15th Street is full of fellow downtown employees, many of them young professionals. Just last week, a new report from the U.S.